Officials are probing how a 51-year-old highway bridge came to collapse in the Italian port city of Genoa yesterday, killing at least 26 people and injuring 16 others as it sent dozens of vehicles tumbling into a heap of concrete and twisted steel.

Food aid allocated to Afghanistan

Australia has stumped up an extra $10 million towards emergency food supplies for people in Afghanistan at a special European Union-led donor conference in Brussels.

The money will go to the World Food Program to help address the hunger and nutrition needs of people internally displaced because of conflict and violence.

Fifteen years after the US invasion that ousted Taliban rulers who harboured jihadists behind the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, Afghanistan remains reliant on international aid and faces resurgent militants that threaten its progress.

As part of broader cuts the Abbott government slashed Australia's aid program to Afghanistan by 40 per cent in the 2015 federal budget, trimming it from $130 million.

The program is now worth $80 million a year and the aid plan has been extended to 2020, Foreign Minister Julie Bishop said in a statement.

"Our support has also allowed many thousands of girls to attend school, particularly in remote and rural communities," she said.

Australia has about 270 defence personnel based in Afghanistan training its national army.

The two-day conference this week sought fresh funds to keep Afghanistan going until 2020, despite public fatigue in some donor countries with their governments' involvement in the region.

Afghanistan remains one of the world's most dangerous countries, with 1.2 million Afghans forced to live as refugees in their own country and another three million living in Iran, Pakistan or seeking asylum in Europe.